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GNU screen would like a word.


I really don't know how tmux got so much mindshare over screen. It just isn't obviously better in any way. Maybe screen is just poorly named?


Screen couldn’t do vertical splits for the longest time. That started to be a bigger problem when screens got bigger and wider. I believe that’s why I started using tmux. Tmux also has more facilities for automation. Nowadays, screen is primarily in maintenance mode, and I’m used to tmux, so no reason to switch back.


Tmux for a lot of things, including scripts

Screen for when I need things ti behave and work a certain way


I think a lot of it is that tmux had friendler, sane defaults and clearer command design (eg. status bar out of the box). And, I suspect, people not already knowing screen.

The latter reason is why Helix is slow in doing similar to vim, I think, despite being far more consistently designed and saner defaults. Everyone knows vim exists.

I've still never switched from screen, personally, though I'm only a light user.


> status bar out of the box

Software packages win over other packages for the silliest reasons.


Defaults matter. I've had my screenrc with a status line but I still ended up preferring tmux in the end, because not needing a config file was a small but pleasant advantage when working with different machines. I also didn't like ctrl+a as the leader combination, because it conflicts with "go to the beginning of the line" in bash. ctrl+b is a much nicer default.


The status bar displays key information to the user. Do you think people would prefer a video player with no play/pause, volume, seekbar or one with them? The interface is the most important part of any application.


There's two things that made me switch from tmux to screen:

- persistence of layouts. Screen doesn't remember if you had a split view open, it always opens the current terminal in full screen.

- screen's default hotkey ^A clashes with ssh's escape key. Yes, these are configurable but having to re-populate the same config file is like a papercut every time to access a new system.

Defaults matter, especially if you work across many different systems (and from different customers). At some point, it just becomes easier to learn the defaults than to (over-)optimize to your ideal workflow.


> GNU screen would like a word.

Screen, tmux, byobu, dvtm, mtm, Twin, and most of all Zellij, which is basically "tmux but redone in Rust".

I tried to compare them all a month ago:

https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/24/tiling_multiplexers_s...




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